Biggest Leak on Twitch
On October 6, 2021, Twitch, the biggest video game live-streaming platform currently online, suffered the most significant leak within the website’s history. A user of the forum site 4chan posted anonymously a link to a 128GB torrent claiming to contain the entirety of Twitch’s source code, creator payouts from 2019, an in-development competitor of Steam from Amazon, and more.
Image of the 4chan post, links censored out
Streamer Payouts Galore
What gathered the eyes of many when the leak dropped was the release of creator payouts from the platform. Recent payouts from September of this year to total earnings since 2019 were included within the leak, showing the profits of some of Twitch’s biggest stars. Some of the biggest on the list include summit1g at $5,847,541.17 in third place, xQc with $8,454,427.17 in second place, and CriticalRole at $9,626,712.16 in first on the list.
The list was compiled by Twitter user KnowSomething, and he has even included the September 2021 payouts as a separate image found within the original Twitter thread here. It is essential to know that these figures are only direct payouts from subscriptions and bits, not counting sponsorships, donations, or merchandise. These earnings are just a fraction of what content creators on the platform are actively making.
Top 25 Streamers From Payouts 2019-2021
Image courtesy of KnowNothingTV
Tweet from @KnowS0mething
Source Code and Steam Competitor
Included in the 128GB torrent was the entirety of Twitch’s source code, internal red teaming tools, SDKs and more. The leak included details of an unreleased competitor to Steam, the most prominent digital PC game store currently, by Amazon Game Studios called Vapor. It is unclear whether this competitor is going to be released or not after this leak.
Twitch’s message to creators informing them of updating stream keys
Twitch Response and Ongoing Investigation
As of now Twitch has responded to the leak, confirming the breach has happened and that it is currently looking into the extent of the information leak. In a blog post to the site Twitch states that “some data was exposed to the internet due to an error in a Twitch server configuration change.” The investigation is still ongoing at the time of writing.
As a precaution to the data breach, Twitch has changed the stream keys of every account, making it so no outside user can stream on a content creator’s channel if the old stream keys are a part of the data breach and heavily advises users to change their passwords.
The 4chan user has stated this leak to only be “part one” and it is unknown what other information is compromised.
About the Author
Brandon Gonzales
Student Writer – Spring 2021
